A GLANCE BACKWARD.
It was late May at the Swiftwater Ranch; back in the east it would have
been summer, but here the snow was falling heavily, and being whirled
about the buildings by the high wind, piling up in drifts on the leeward
side, and being swept off the ground to windward. Down in the bunk-house
Jack Danvers and Hugh Johnson were sitting on the floor near the warm
stove, looking over pack-saddles, cinches and ropes, for they were
preparing to make a long journey.
Only the day before Jack had reached the ranch from New York, after an
absence of seven months, and all his friends there were glad to see him
again. During the winter he had succeeded in persuading his parents to
consent to his making the long trip up north to the Piegan camp, of
which Hugh and John Monroe had talked to him the year before. Mr.
Sturgis, his uncle, wished to have him go, and had said that he was
willing to let Hugh be absent from the ranch during the time needed for
the journey and the stay in the Indian camp. This would be not less than
four months, for it would take them a month to reach the camp, and
nearly as much more to return, and it was not worth while to make so
long a trip unless they were to stay with the Indians two or three
months.
It will be remembered by those who have read the adventures of Jack
during his summer spent on Mr. Sturgis' ranch, that he had learned a
good deal about life in the west;--to ride and shoot and throw a
rope--and had been taught by Hugh much of the knowledge required by one
who lived the open-air life of mountain and prairie. Hugh had said, and
Jack's uncle agreed with him, that they two could perfectly well make
the journey to the north. There was only one possible cause of anxiety,
and that was the chance that they might meet with some party of hostile
Indians, in which case they might have to fight for their lives. There
was not much danger that this would happen, for spring had but just
opened, the grass was only now beginning to start; the Indian ponies,
which are always thin in flesh at the end of the winter, would not have
become fat; and so it was too early for war parties to be moving about
much. On the other hand, the riding and pack animals taken by Hugh would
be fat and in good condition, and so, well able to run away from any
pursuers. It had been determined, too, to select horses that were fast,
and when these precautions had been taken, and Hugh's great knowledge of
Indians and their ways was considered, the danger of trouble appeared
very slight.
Mr. Sturgis was extremely fond of Jack, and dearly loved his sister, and
he would not for a moment have thought of letting the boy run any risks.
"I didn't hardly know you yesterday, son, when you got off the train;
you seem to have changed a heap since you went away from here last fall.
You're sure grown; you're a heap taller than you were, and you look
kind o' white and bleached out, like you'd faded."
"I guess that's so, Hugh," replied Jack, "I know I've grown pretty near
two inches, for I was measured last fall, when I entered school, and
again this spring when I left, and of course I'm white, because I've
been living in a house ever since I got back, and haven't been out of
doors at all."
"Well, what did ye do all winter?" said Hugh; "went to school, I reckon,
and learned a whole lot. Study hard?"
"Yes, I studied hard. Of course I wanted to do well, but after I'd been
back a little while, I thought that maybe if I worked right hard at
school, and got good reports right along, father would be more willing
to have me come out here again and spend the summer with you."
"Well, that was pretty good sense. I expect ye tried to keep him pleased
with your schooling right along."
"Yes, I did," said Jack. "I told Uncle Will about it soon after I
started in at school, and he said it was a mighty good idea, and I'd
better keep it up. I don't know whether they would have let me come or
not, if it hadn't been for Uncle Will. When he left home in the spring I
heard him say to mother, 'Jack's been working hard all winter, and he's
getting to look pretty thin and white; I really think you'd better send
him off to me again in a month or two, for that long trip that he and
Hugh have been planning.' So along in April I spoke to father about
coming out again. He said he was willing I should come if mother was,
and that he'd talk to her about it; so after a while it got so that we
all of us talked it over together, and at last father and mother both
said that I could come; and here I am, and mighty glad to get back here,
too, you bet."
"Well, you bet, we're mighty glad to see you, and we'd like to have you
stop here right along; only I don't expect that would do, 'cause ye're
young and ye've got a heap to learn; but it's sure mighty good for a boy
to spend three or four months out here in the fine weather, and so to
get ready for these long months when ye've got to live in a house all
the time."
"There's one thing I did last winter, Hugh, that I think is going to be
a lot of fun; I learned how to make a bird skin."
"Make a bird skin!" said Hugh. "How do ye make it?"
"I mean I learned how to skin a bird, and stuff cotton into it, and fix
it up so that it looks just like a dead bird lying there with its legs
stretched out. You know there are people who study birds and know all
about all the different kinds. When they see a bird they can tell you in
a minute just what its Latin name is, and where it lives in summer, and
then where it goes to pass the winter, for of course there are lots of
birds that go south in the fall, until the weather gets warm, and then
come north again."
"Yes, that's so," said Hugh, "everybody knows that."
"Well," continued Jack, "of course there isn't any man who has been all
over the world and seen all the birds that there are, alive; so the men
that go to one place, kill and skin a lot of the birds that live there,
and then when they get back they put these skins in a museum, where
everybody can see them; and there are a lot of men doing this all the
time; and so after a while the biggest museums come to have the skins of
pretty nearly all the birds there are. There must be a lot of 'em in
all. An ornithologist told me there were more than 750 in North
America."
"What was it told you that?" asked Hugh.
"An ornithologist," said Jack.
"What's that?" questioned Hugh; "it's a mighty long word, 'pears to me."
"It means a man that studies birds, and knows all about them."
"Well," said Hugh, "I'd hate to be called by such a name as that, even
if I did know all about birds."
"Why," said Jack, "that word isn't anything to some of the Latin names
these little birds have. I don't know what they are, many of them, at
least, but they're all written down in Uncle Will's bird book, up at the
house, and some of them are terrors, I can tell you."
"And this man told you there was 750 different kinds of birds in this
country, did he?" said Hugh.
"That's what he told me," said Jack.
"Well," said Hugh, "of course this is a big country, and I make no doubt
there's lots o' birds that I never saw, but I don't believe that there's
fifty different kinds o' birds around this ranch."
"Oh, yes there are. I'll bet there's twice as many as that. Why just try
and count 'em up for yourself; think of all the different kinds of ducks
and geese that we saw last fall, and the grouse, and the robins and the
gray jays. I'll bet you could count more than fifty yourself, if you had
time to think about it."
"Well," said Hugh, "maybe I could; come to think about it; there's a
heap o' different kinds o' birds. I never paid much attention to any of
'em, only the kinds that's good to eat; but say, I should think it would
be mighty hard work skinning these little birds; their skin must be
awful thin, and tear mighty easy."
"Well," said Jack, "that's just what I thought when I started in, but
the fact is their skins are pretty tough. Of course you can't pull at
them the way you would at a deer skin, but if you know how to do it, you
scarcely ever tear a bird skin.
"Uncle Will put me up to this soon after I got home, and he took me down
to a bird skinner and hired him to give me lessons. I used to go down
there twice a week all through the winter and spring, and I have got so
now that I can make a pretty good skin, and work pretty fast, too. I'm
going to try to collect a few skins here, sometime when I can. If I come
out another summer to stay here, I shall try to make a collection of all
the birds that live here in summer."
"Well, I'd like right well to see you doing that work. It seems to me it
would be mighty hard, but then there's a whole lot of things that we
ain't none of us ever done that looks hard and yet are real easy after
we know how to do 'em."
While all this talk was going on, they had been sorting over the
material that was strewed on the floor, had picked out four good strong
pack saddles, and the greater part of their riggings. Two of the lash
cinches were in good order, the other two needed new hooks. Hugh stepped
out of doors, and presently returned, bringing with him a small elk
horn, from which he sawed off two lengths, each of which bore a prong.
These he placed in a vice, shaped with a heavy rasp, and then passed
over to Jack to fasten to the cinches. The smooth hook of horn was laced
to the end of the cinch so that it hung down three inches below it.
All the straps of the pack saddle were now carefully looked over; any
that were worn or in any way weak were renewed; sling ropes of just the
right length were cut for each saddle, and new lash ropes took the place
of one or two that showed signs of wear; four hackamores were made, one
for each pack horse.
This work took up all the morning, and was not entirely finished when
the horn blew for dinner.